Sars affects labor market
The spread of SARS virus has caused a significant impact on the labor market, with almost 30 percent of enterprises that were planning to hire new workers earlier this year having decided to suspend recruitment, according to the results of a recent poll released yesterday.
The telephone poll, conducted by the 9999 Job Bank from May 22 to June 4, received 512 valid responses from executives of 1,000 big companies.
According to the results of the survey, 40 percent of the respondents thought that SARS had made a tremendous impact on their companies, while 18 percent of the companies thought the SARS outbreak had a limited impact, with only 10 percent saying they have not been influenced by the disease.
Because of SARS, 13 percent of the polled companies plan to lay off employees due to reduced business.
Among these polled, 74 percent said their companies originally had planned to hire new individuals early this year, but now only 68 percent of the enterprises will keep to their plan, with 31 percent showing no desire to hire new employees.
Tax revenues fell
Tax revenues from stock transactions last month fell by 46.1 percent to NT$3.2 billion from the same period of last year, mainly because of the outbreak of SARS, the Ministry of Finance said in the monthly tax revenue report released yesterday.
Total tax revenues last month fell 15.5 percent year-on-year to NT$190.3 billion, with income tax revenues reporting 26.7-percent decline to NT$75 billion and housing tax, a set back of 12 percent, to NT$27.5 billion, the ministry statistics showed.
For the first five months, the total tax revenues fell 10.8 percent year-on-year to NT$504.8 billion, accounting for only 36.8 percent
of the target set for the year, the ministry said.
Taiwan helps Japan's tourism
Taiwan was the second-biggest source of tourists to Japan in 2002, next only to South Korea, according to a "tourism white paper" released yesterday by the Japanese government.
Japan attracted 5.24 million tourists last year, a record high in Japan's history. Two-thirds of them were from Asia, including 1.27 million from South Korea, 880,000 from Taiwan and 450,000 from China. American tourists to Japan totaled 730,000.
The report said 16.52 million Japanese people traveled abroad in the same year.
CKS sees increase in flights
The CKS International Airport had 135 arriving and departing flights Monday, an airport official said.
He said the number of passengers going through the airport totaled 8,246 Monday, including 3,825 arrivals.
Firms go for Czech Republic
Asian electronics companies, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Matsushita Electric Works Ltd, are moving manufacturing plants to the Czech Republic from Asia and the countries now members of the EU, the Financial Times said, citing Jim Chang, head of Czech operations for Hon Hai's Foxconn.
"The Czech Republic is at the center of wider Europe," said Chang.
"We will continue to grow here and will move more and more manufacturing from other parts of the world to here."
NT dollar trades down
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.015 to close at NT$34.677 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$323 million.
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